Scotch and a Little Sympathy
by Potions Student
Summary: Another "Grissom gets drunk and goes to talk to Sara" GSR, the "R" standing more for "Realism" than "Romance" (though there is some of that too). Post"Snakes", spoilers for Season 5 and "Butterflied". Complete, for now.


DISCLAIMER: If I owned any part of CSI, that scene in "Snakes" would have ended rather differently.

A/N: After reading one too many Grissom-gets-plastered fics, the plotbunny bit. For the moment, this fic is finished, though I may add another chapter, if my muses give me something good to run with. Otherwise, I think I've left it just where it should end.

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Scotch and (a Little) Sympathy

By Karen Shepherd (aka Potions Student)

It wasn't until after his fourth double scotch-on-the-rocks that he remembered that he hadn't had anything to eat in over seven hours. He tended to demarcate days or shifts by when he arrived home and when he left to go to work, so the fact that he'd eaten twice since he'd last been home hadn't seemed to be a problem. At least, that was until halfway through that fourth scotch, when he realized that he'd been at the lab or at scenes for about twenty hours.

It was also about that time that he'd signalled the bartender to fill him up and the man had shook his head, and he'd realized he hadn't been paying attention to how much he'd been drinking. Again, this wasn't something that he'd usually do. The last time he'd been on a bender had been...well at that moment, his mind was going rather fuzzy, but it had been a long time. Years, probably. Probably more recently than the last time he'd had sex, actually, and that was saying something.

But as he'd left the lab that night, all he'd thought of was Sara's brittle smile as she spouted the usual psychobabble: "I look for validation in...inappropriate places." And, worst of all, the way he'd been unable to say anything, _anything_ even remotely coherent in response. And by the time he'd left the lab, he had really wanted just one tiny drink. Just the amount he had every couple months or so, when he'd had a truly rough day. Or when he'd made an ass of himself, whichever came first. Just half a glass, sipped over a long period of time, the kind of thing that would hardly register on a breathalyzer. But somehow as he'd sat there, the conversation from hell replaying itself in his head, the glass had obviously found its way into his hands rather oftener than he'd intended.

_Gil Grissom,_ he thought, _you are well and truly smashed, you big idiot._ Which was about when the alcohol of that fourth drink hit him, and he forgot to care about the fact he had obviously had too much.

The bartender leaned over, taking the glass away and tipping the remaining ice in the sink, a clear sign that this binge was over. Grissom tossed enough to cover the bill and then some onto the counter, and the bartender leaned over, saying something about a cab. Grissom nodded, and ten minutes later found himself in the back of a cab, the driver staring at him in the rearview mirror. It took him a moment to realize what the cabbie has asked him. His destination. Yes. He needed to give an address, and for some unexplainable reason, he found himself giving Sara's address. Some part of his brain which hadn't entirely submitted to the sway of the alcohol in his system piped up that that might not have been the best idea, but the thought didn't permeate the mental fog enough to cause him any concern.

The next thing he realized, he was standing--or rather, swaying--in front of Sara's condo, his wallet twenty dollars lighter, the rear lights of the cab just two red fireflies down the street. He stood there for a moment, then put one foot forward. It found the ground with only a little difficulty, and he tried the second foot. Ah, that worked. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. The ground seemed uneven, and he made a mental note to tell Sara that her super should check the pathway, that the paving stones had been awfully badly laid to be so uneven, but he managed to reach her door without stumbling.

It was only when he reached her door and had pressed the doorbell that he realized he hadn't a clue what to say when she opened the door. If she opened the door. He placed a hand against the doorframe, trying to give himself some support while he thought. The door opened, Sara looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"Grissom?" she said, giving him a once-over, puzzlement deepending on her face.

_Not fair,_ he thought, _I didn't have time to think of something to say_.

---------

"I'm an idiot."

Sara looked at Grissom no less puzzled than she had when she'd opened the door. For a moment the Doppelganger Theory crossed her mind; the theory that somewhere in the world is an exact duplicate of oneself. And that somehow Grissom's doppelganger had somehow found his way to her apartment. Because the last person she had ever expected to find in her doorstep, dishevelled, swaying, and obviously very drunk, was Gil Grissom.

"I'm an idiot," he said again, the slurring of his words slightly more pronounced this time. "I'm an idiot for not taking my chances when they come up."

"Grissom...Grissom, what are you doing here, exactly?" she asked, slowly, idly wondering if she'd somehow found herself thrust through a wormhole into some alternate universe where Grissom was not the Grissom she knew--or thought she knew--and where him turning up at her home, completely tanked, was a normal thing. Instead of what it was in the universe she knew, what was just plain fucking weird.

"I get all these chances, and I just clam up. Don't know what to say, what to do. And then they pass and I keep thinking that if I get another chance I'll do something different. Say yes instead of no. But then they come along and I do the same thing. And I know I won't keep getting these chances, but I can't change. I know I don't deserve as many chances as I get. I don't deserve to have you wait for me. You haven't been waiting for me, have you? Please say no," he said, a pained look crossing his face. As though to cement her thought that this could not be the real Grissom standing there, saying these things, he took a step forward, and cupped her cheek in his hand, looking at her intently.

Sara just stared at him, speechless, still trying to take it in. And then before she could do or say anything, he leaned closer, bending down so their lips met in a kiss.

For a moment she was just shocked, almost literally, as she felt something akin to the zaps she got when she touched a doorknown after walking across carpet. Only this went the length of her entire body, her heart skipping a beat. And then just as he placed his hands on her waist, she realized that he smelled like booze and cigarette smoke, and, moreover, that his mouth tasted like alcohol. Not to mention the fact that she could tell he probably hadn't brushed his teeth in a while. Not the world's most romantic combination.

She pulled back. "Grissom, no. You're completely plastered."

He managed to look hurt for a moment, before his eyes widened with alarm and he dove for the railing separating her front step from the bushes by her front door. He just managed to bend over the railing before he retched, and Sara had the nearly irresistible impulse to put her head in her hands. Somehow, of all the scenarios she'd imagined for their first kiss, it had never been quite like this.

After a moment, the gagging noises stopped and she looked over at him again. He was a pathetic sight: doubled over the railing, his head propped in one hand, his face ashen. No, this had never featured in any romantic fantasy she could remember.

He was wobbling, and she doubted he could stand there much longer. Nor did she really want to display any more of this to her neighbours, so, letting out a strained sigh, she marched over to him, took his arm, and pulled him inside. He followed obediently, and she doubted he was really conscious of what he was doing at the moment. She managed to half lead, half drag him over to her living room couch, a slight push all he needed to flop onto the couch cushions. By the time she'd returned with a glass of water, he was out like a light. She let out another sigh; this had to make up for the incident last year, when he'd had to drive her home. At least she hadn't bared her soul and passed out on his couch, though that was more because of the utter and total humiliation she'd felt, rather than any personal quality.

Placing the glass next to his head, she fetched a pillow and blanket from the linen closet, then tugged off his shoes and jacket (dressing and undressing test dummies made rather good practice at removing clothing from unconscious co-workers, apparently) and tucked him in. Fetching a bottle of aspirin and a basin, she placed both next to his head where he could find them if needed, before heading to bed.

She had just crawled into bed and turned out her light when a long, loud snore came from the next room. Sara turned over, buried her face in her pillow and let out a scream.

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Oh God. The last thing he wanted to do was to open his eyes at the moment, as he was certain this kind of bodily pain could only have come from some horrific accident, and if he was currently lying in a hospital, mangled beyond belief, he didn't want to know.

But then if he was in the hospital from such an accident, he should be on so many drugs that he shouldn't feel anything. So either it was something completely different or the nurses had definitely been holding back.

He cracked an eye open, and immediately closed it, the brief flash of light searing his retina, sending pain searing through his skull. Frantically he flipped through his memory, trying to remember what had caused this. He remembered a bar. Okay, that seemed normal enough. Then he seemed to remember kissing Sara, but that had be one of his fantasies filtering in, because that would never have happened. Then there was something to do with bushes, but that part was rather fuzzy.

Lifting his head, he cracked the other eye open, just a little. Pain again, though perhaps not as badly. Still he took a look around before closing his eyes once more. All right then. He was in a living room. Not his; that seemed important. Not one he recognised, either. But it had all been there--TV, stereo, coffee table... There had been something on the coffee table. He opened an eye again, quickly. A glass, and a bottle. A bottle of aspirin.

_Thank you, God_, he thought, and grabbed the bottle, struggling with the childproof cap for a couple minutes before he managed to pop it open and shake two pills into his hand, downing them with a swig of water. Lying back, he closed his eyes once more, hoping the aspirin would take effect fast.

He heard rustling from not far away, then footsteps, walking toward him. Cracking one eye open once more, he looked over the back of the couch that he was lying on, and blinked. Sara was padding across the room, dressed in pyjama pants and a t-shirt, her hair tousled in that just-been-pulled-through-a-hedge-backwards kind of way, yawning as she headed for the kitchen.

"Sara?" he croaked, but she apparently didn't hear him, as she didn't react at all to his presence. As she turned to get something from a cupboard, he noticed something bright orange sticking out of her ear. Earplugs? Why on earth would she need earplugs? Noisy neighbours, perhaps.

He flopped down on the couch, closing his eyes and letting the world settle again as he rubbed his forehead. This was insane. How in the hell had he got himself into this mess? Then another thought struck: he was in Sara's house, and his logical mind was telling him that these physiological symptoms were the result of getting well and truly drunk. And on the rare occasions he was drunk he tended to lose his inhibitions. All of them. Even the ones that usually filtered out his thoughts before they could reach his mouth. _Please tell me I didn't actually do it_, he thought, _I didn't actually say whatever I was thinking. I didn't actually try and kiss her._

Something nudged his foot and he opened his eyes again to see Sara, looking down at him, _sans_ earplugs. "How're you feeling?" she asked, the sound setting off the jackhammers in his skull again.

He looked at her balefully for a moment. "Awful," he said, finally, "What happened?" He wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

Her lips narrowed into a thin line; she was trying not to show her irritation with him, he could tell. "I don't know, Grissom, you tell me. All I know is you turned up on my doorstep rather early this morning, completely plastered, and then proceeded to pass out almost as soon as I got you inside."

Ohshit. For not the first time in his life, he wished he had one of those cartoon holes that he could just pull out of his pocket, toss on the floor and disappear into. Anything other than having to actually face this kind of situation. As if some greater power was determined to make things worse, suddenly a smell hit his nostrils: the smell of coffee. Oh _shit_, he was going to--

Without another word, Grissom jumped off the couch and bolted for the bathroom, just making it before what little he had in his stomach made a reappearance.

Flushing the toilet, he looked at the water swirling around the bowl and wondered if it was quite possible whether he'd be able to drown himself in it.

----------

As the now-familiar sound of Grissom gagging came from the bathroom, Sara gave in and put her face in her hands. Why did things like this always happen to her? Why couldn't he have picked anyone else's house to go to in his alcohol-induced stupor? Surely this was the kind of thing he would have gone to Catherine for?

Looking toward the bathroom, she saw Grissom splashing water on his face, and rinsing out his mouth with her mouthwash. When he re-emerged a minute later, she immediately saw his eyes flicker toward her front door. Oh, no. There was no way in hell he was getting out of this that easily.

"God, Sara...look, I...I'm really sorry about this. I never... Maybe I should just go--" he said, taking a step closer to the front door.

"Oh no you _don't_, Gil Grissom," she said, blocking his path. "You are _not_ running away right now; for one thing, you don't have a car here, and you can hardly stand up straight at the moment. And after that little show earlier today the least you owe me is an explanation. A_ real _one."

He looked at her despondently, but even the Gil Grissom puppy-dog eyes weren't going to sway her. Not this time.

He let out a sigh. "I think I need to sit down."

She nodded. "And you need some coffee." She heard him groan, but when she placed a mug in his hands a a few minutes later, he gave her a weak smile of thanks. "So what happened, Grissom? I never figured you for the drinking type."

"I'm not. Well, most of the time. I just...I was preoccupied. I lost track of how much I'd had." He looked over at her, obviously checking to see if he'd explained enough yet. She stared at him evenly; he hadn't even started satisfying her demands yet.

"Preoccupied with what? Not with work," she replied, before he could try and take that way out. She knew exactly what he'd been working on the night before, and it hadn't been anything that would have initiated something like this.

"Not with work," he said with a sigh. He took a sip of coffee, and she noticed his hand shaking just a little. Good, she hoped he was nervous. "I just...I couldn't stop going over our conversation." Another glance at her--no, no reprieve yet. "I...I always have all these things...planned out, how I want to say things, but...whenever I actually have to say them to you, I just get...tongue-tied." It looked as though he was physically having to drag out each word. Good. She wanted him to struggle with this. Better than taking the easy way out every time.

"You said you always planned to change things when you got another chance, but when the time came you just couldn't do it."

He looked at her, puzzled. "When did--" Comprehension dawned on his face, and for a moment she thought he looked as though he was going to be sick again. "Oh _God_."

"And that's what it boils down to, isn't it, Grissom? That somehow I'm not enough to make you change your ways. You want to, but I'm not incentive enough." She tried to sound sarcastic, but didn't quite manage. Saying what she'd secretly thought since she'd heard his confession to Lurie somehow wasn't as easy as she'd thought.

He looked at her, a horrified expression crossing his face. "Sara, no, that's not--"

"It _is_, Grissom. You admitted it, you wanted to take me up on my offer, but you couldn't. Which means you weighed the pros and cons and everything going against me outweighed the possibilities that there might be something there."

"Sara, if I thought you deserved to be saddled with me of all people... It wouldn't work, we can hardly have a conversation about _anything_. It would never work and I'd just end up breaking your heart, and you'd do the same to me. Just seemed better to get it over sooner rather than later," he said, taking another sip of his coffee, not looking at her.

"Grissom, I never asked to be 'saddled with you'. I just wanted to see what would _happen_. I wanted to at least take things for a test drive, not buy the damn car right off the lot. And yeah, we've got our problems. So does everyone. But if you know there's something wrong with you then you _try to fix it_, make things work, not shrug your shoulders and say, 'well that's too bad, because I can't change.'"

She saw him wincing, and realized she was speaking rather loudly. It was probably aggravating his hangover, not that she particularly cared at the moment. Perhaps being hung over was something she could sympathize with, and she _had_ caused him some trouble the last few months with her drinking, but dammit, he'd been jerking her around for a lot longer.

"Sara...I'm...I'm sorry--"

"And you can stop saying that, because it kinds of loses its meaning when you say that and then go and do the same thing you were apologizing for."

He looked at her sheepishly. "Then...what can I do, to make things right again? Because...because I miss the days when we could actually work together and...and at least be friends."

She looked at him for a moment, thinking carefully. There was one thing, and she knew how much it would cost him. Her only worry was whether it would be a higher price than he was willing to pay--but well, then they'd both know exactly where they stood. Sink or swim.

"Well for starters you can give me a kiss to make up for that truly awful one last night," she said, her voice sounding one hell of a lot more confident than she'd expected.

He gaped at her like a fish for a moment; _fish, Gil, get it?_ her brain prodded, and she stomped on her urge to break into hysterical giggles. For a moment she wasn't sure whether he'd actually do it or whether he'd bolt, and she wasn't sure which outcome she feared more. But then he visibly swallowed, and began to lean towards her, looking for all the world like some schoolboy who wasn't sure exactly how this kissing thing worked.

She swallowed and put her hands on his shoulders. None of this quick-peck-on-the-lips-then-bolt kind of thing; if he actually made it that far, she was determined that he was going to stick around. She closed her eyes just before his lips met hers, and she could feel him relax, just a little.

It still wasn't, perhaps, what she'd fantasized about. He still smelled a little like alcohol and cigarette smoke, but his mouth tasted like coffee. _Close enough_, she thought, and concentrated on kissing him back.


End file.
